


Resolve

by Pegunicent



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Feels, Gen, Gift Fic, Hurt No Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29835714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pegunicent/pseuds/Pegunicent
Summary: Introspective piece for Notavodkashot's birthday
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Resolve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notavodkashot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/gifts).



The thing is, Leon knows, he's **terrible** at sharing. Almost as bad as he is at losing. Both are skills he's never **had** to practice, at least in the most broad, metaphorical sort of way. By the time Hop came around Leon was mostly out the door. He didn't feel like he was losing anything in having to share his parents because he had other things to occupy himself with. He had battles and ever growing Champion responsibilities. He had Charmander and Sonia and then he had Charmeleon and Raihan and **then** he had Charizard and all of Galar. 

Maybe Sonia could have taught him to share better if she'd been there the whole way but he became Champion and she didn't and then she didn't come **back** and they weren't rivals anymore. At some point she found something besides fighting and he never did. They weren't even really friends anymore, not as they had been. They were **friendly** , they would probably always be friendly, but they weren't **friends**. He had been confused at first, that first year when he was Champion and she didn't take the challenge, she didn't meet him half way, she didn't even **try**. He'd been hurt and confused and resentful, and Rose had taken him aside and had a very long talk with him about how people needed different things sometimes. How they grew up and grew apart but that didn't mean they didn't **care**. 

Sonia found something besides fighting and he never did. Fighting was what he did. It's what he was **for**. 

So he'd never had to learn to share, really. Anything he wanted badly enough to fight for, eventually he'd win, and if it wasn't worth fighting for then it wasn't **really** important was it? He fought for his pokemon, for the team that he created despite PR's pushing for more 'friendly' and 'aesthetic' members. He fought for specific holidays off to see his family and growing brother and when Sonia presented her first dissertation he fought to attend incognito, to show his support without stealing the attention. 

She'd found something outside of battle to live for and he didn't. He was so terribly bad at losing he'd taken defeat and used it to make a whole new way for him to win. The Battle Tower was a logistical and political nightmare but he needed it. He needed a place where he could fight, and win, without stealing back the title he'd fairly lost. And then he lost anyway. So he made **another** way to win, another tournament and style and challenge because he didn't care about the title, he didn't care about the money or acclaim or **work** other people had to put in to make his self aggrandizing vision come about. He cared about **winning**. He battled because that was his purpose, and he **won**. He almost always won, if he fought hard enough. 

He'd even offered once, just once, to fight for Piers's inclusion in the opening ceremonies of the Gym Challenge. 

He didn't do it for Piers. 

He doesn't know if Piers ever told Raihan about his offer, and it's just as well if his rival doesn't know. They can pretend it was because Leon wanted to be fair, that he saw an injustice and wanted to right it. It's one of those little lies Rose would let him get away with if it made good headlines. 

But the truth was he was bad at sharing, and bad at losing and Raihan was his rival, certainly, but he was Piers's friend. Raihan knew how to share, and how to lose, and he was beautiful at both. He was beautiful. Leon wanted to be his friend. Leon wanted to be as close as Piers was to him, so he offered to fight for Piers like the man needed anything Leon could offer. Like Piers didn't take one look at him, one long drag from a cigarette and snort out smoke like Charizard smelling a Fairy, and tell him bluntly to go straight to hell. 

Leon had let the PR smile drop for just long enough to look around the rubble and neon and ask in his most Rose-refined tone if he hadn't already reached it.

He doesn't know why Piers didn't punch him. He's not going to ever ask. 

Looking over the rising lights of the stadium at Hop and Marnie facing off against Piers and Gordie, he lets his thumb rub over Charizard's ball. Gloria isn't here this time. He thinks she's like Sonia, finding things other than violence to live for. She'd seemed calmer and more thoughtful the last time she'd come to the Battle Tower, and told him it would **be** her last time. 

“There's nothing here for me.”

The fight isn't enough, she didn't say. Winning isn't **enough**. 

Even Piers walked away, until his sister and Raihan dragged him back with Leon's open invitation. Piers knows how to lose, has been doing it a long time. Somehow though he still **won**. He won a battle Leon hadn't known to fight until too late. He won in ways Leon didn't know **were** battles until he'd grown up and grown... grown into the man Rose needed him to be. A man who found new ways to win. A man who couldn't accept defeat. 

He doesn't think he's as bad at things as Rose. He likes to think he puts other people's needs above his wants, and he likes to think he's a decent person. In general the world has a good opinion of him and his family love him so Leon is pretty sure he's not terrible as far as human beings go. It's just that. Leon isn't good at sharing, or losing. He doesn't want to learn to be either.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy b-day.


End file.
